


Nurtured burdains sustain rebirth

by laughingpineapple



Category: Myst Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 01:55:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His journals tell that Atrus returned to J'nanin to learn a lesson he had just rediscovered. He found a new layer to it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nurtured burdains sustain rebirth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nadat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadat/gifts).



 

Atrus could not stay.

J'nanin greeted him with the white of waves and clouds and tusks, with strong ocean wind, rough porous rocks tickling his toes, three lines of footprints on the sandy pathways. One father, two laughing sons.

He reached for his Book back to Chroma'agana. Stopped. Forced himself to focus on the Age's empty present (it was hard when the wood rope bridges seemed as clean and well-trodden as years before).

Revisiting Myst taught him shame: the rooms were full of his sons' fake smiles and the library still smelled like fire. He told himself he needed that shame to push forward and rekindle a constant ache that would guide him on a better path.

On J'nanin, they were just children. The memories that filled that place would break him and let him rot. Atrus felt tears welling up behind his goggles and hung onto the Book's leather binding until the linking brought him home.

 

And what about his people in D'ni. His people to whom the great City was a birthplace, a homeland, a tangible knot of memories, not just the distant call of blood and tales like the Cavern talked to him. There were many who still remembered its lights. Were they changed by the sight of a darkened lake? Eroded, the way his father had been? Atrus' logic had already demonstrated to him that writing a new sky for them was the only plausible solution and his heart had found no objections, but he still carried his doubts with him. 'What if's, 'And then's. The benefits of command.

On J'nanin, he knew.

Their tie to the Cavern would remain (that tie needed to stay strong, Terahnee warned). The ache would never leave. But perspective would soothe their wounds.

 

A rebirth needs its past, and he felt bold enough to think that King Ri'neref would have agreed. But it does not need to be flooded by its past or its former ending will have been for naught.

 

That is what he learned that day. Old chords, struck with such intensity by the salty J'nanin winds that their echo formed clear words. So put them into words he did, that evening, on a bare journal page: four words in circle like the other lessons his research had brought back to him. He dug out old journals, put a new graphite lead on an old pair of compasses to trace them right.

 

 

“I never asked my Narayani friend for the second word. 'Burden'. He was a teacher, he would have known it well”, he told Catherine as he showed her that incomplete weaving of circles – she nodded, tracing the final one with her calloused finger.

Such a heavy sign to mean 'rebirth', she said, as if the new form struggled to move upwards, already shadowing oppressions to come.

He could not answer (“Circles. They all lead back to the beginning”, but that was her area of expertise, not his, and not a thought he could allow to entertain while carrying many futures on his shoulders). So instead he said:

“I hope he is doing well.”

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry can't Saavedro on short notice and I didn't know how 'older' you meant in your request - and with Uru+EoA being such opinion splitters... I love them and old!Atrus, but I didn't dare to touch those reaches of canon without explicit permission, like, signed on official paper. Keeping this a clean Exile fic, with an Atrus older than the flashbacks, at least. and a mention of everyone's favourite angstbucket, seemed a safe bet... apologies if I bet wrong.  
> I hope I made him justice and that this ficlet suits your Myst tastes after all. Happy Yuletide! :)


End file.
